Critical Research Journal

I returned to War Memorial NI to have a look at their archive and to take a few photos. I was thinking this could possibly be a category with the title ‘artefact’. Ideally, I wanted people that were Irish and had a connection with a station in Northern Ireland (not asking much). Brilliant archive and I could have spent days looking through, there was a big folder on memorials and aircraft crashes. The information was overwhelming, and it was difficult to make easy connections with airfield sites. I intend to pick this up again and have a good look into this area.

There were some aerial photographs of the airfields in construction which were sent over to me digitally, again I will take a look at this later on. The most pieces I found belonged from a gentleman from Bangor Mr Thomson, below you can see his connection with 271 Squadron and within his flying log book reference to Limavady was made. I can’t find within my books/research if 271 Sqn were stationed here (NI) but as a transport and airborne training flights it possible they moved around the country on various tasks, hence the entry of Limavady on his log book.

These artefacts were shot with ambient light on a piece of hessian cloth as I thought that would be better than just a black or white background. At the time it was a nice idea, but I don’t just want to focus on one person as my work is focused on places within Northern Ireland.

Imagery by Laura Wing ©

Featuring Mr Thompson’s military effects during the Second World War serving in 271 Squadron. Top Left to right: Group photo of 271 Squadron, Flying log book and identity tags, Medals. Bottom right: Service book, photo of Sgt Thompson.